SELF PORTRAIT WITH PEN

Well, you get the idea. I flatter myself that it does look like me, but of course you understand that this blogger is not actually a badger.
I think it's illegal for badgers to operate blogs. Something in international law, most likely.



Yes, I smoke a pipe. Usually fairly smelly stuff, tobaccos with a tarry sooty aroma. They’re very exciting in the nose, gentle on the tongue.
But I do not often smoke my pipe at home, because my roommate does not find the reek appealing.
Or even tolerable.
She’s a good roommate. Accepts my peculiarities, doesn’t bug me about my habits.
Once in a blue moon we’ll share a cookie or a pastry.

What you do not see in the photo above is the collection of books. Vladimir Nabokov. Somerset Maugham. An entire library of volumes about the Dutch East Indies, as well as several tomes on mediaeval history. Drafting and engineering reference and manuals. Scores of foreign language dictionaries.
And several hundred cook books.

Books about food are rather like pornography. Lovely pictures, glowingly breathless descriptions. High quality paper stock.
Culinary texts are meant to be drooled over, fondled……..
The kind of thing you read late at night, when you can hear your roommate in her own bedroom gently sleep–breathing. Slowly, slowly, a page is turned, revealing a luscious full colour display of a lovely spread.

You imagine a badger in the kitchen, with pots and pans bubbling away. There is steam, and fragrances.
Carefully, carefully, a spoonful of something warm and spicy gets raised to bewhiskered lips.
It’s good! Sweet and creamy too.

You probably never knew that badgers are sensualists and epicures, did you?
Plus they’re huggable. Truly.

Just look at that likeable fellow above.


==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly: 
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================